What is veganism?

Veganism is a diet – and to some extent a way of life – which seeks to exclude products that have in some way come from animal suffering. This means vegans don’t consume meat, dairy or eggs, or use leather or products tested on animals.

There are different rationales that justify this way of life – from the most commonly recognised ‘animal rights’ standpoint, to the not so obvious environmental standpoint.

Whether or not you think it’s fair to kill an animal for your food is up to you, however the environmental impacts of the livestock sector are irrefutable. The livestock sector accounts for more carbon emissions than the transport sector! It’s also a very wasteful industry, as it is far more efficient to consume plants than to feed them to animals and then consume the animal.

An excerpt from a report issued by the UN:

“…The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global…Livestock’s contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale and its potential contribution to their solution is equally large. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency.

In all, livestock production accounts for 70 percent of all agricultural land and 30 percent of the land surface of the planet.

Indeed, the livestock sector may well be the leading player in the reduction of biodiversity, since it is the major driver of deforestation, as well as one of the leading drivers of land degradation, pollution, climate change, overfishing, sedimentation of coastal areas and facilitation of invasions by alien species.

With rising temperatures, rising sea levels, melting icecaps and glaciers, shifting ocean currents and weather patterns, climate change is the most serious challenge facing the human race.
The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is a higher share than transport.“